About the time I was picked up and adopted by Tallulah

"Ding ding ding! Ding ding ding! Ding ding ding!"

Before the abbot could speak, a shrill alarm suddenly sounded throughout the monastery.

16. Fun Eggs

“Ding ding ding ding——!!!”

A shrill alarm suddenly sounded from the surroundings, interrupting everyone's conversation.

"Hmm...what's going on?"

Orson covered his ears and asked the dean about the situation, while he was ready to escape from here.

After all, when the other party asked her "how to deal with the suspected member of the Deep Sea Church", the abbess of the Pala Monastery felt a little uneasy, and perhaps she would do something about it.

Fortunately, the dean did not suddenly stand up, bend down and lean back while saying something like "You have traced back to my dark history, so I will die here". After hearing the alarm, the dean just sighed.

"Please don't be nervous, Miss Jeanne. This is a warning of a surrounding attack. Although it was almost unheard of a month ago, it has become almost a regular occurrence recently. This alarm means that the infected creatures in the surrounding wilderness have crossed the warning line. Because Pallar is the outermost city-state of Lateran, we have established this alarm mechanism."

The dean sighed and explained. He didn't seem to be very scared of the attack that the alarm represented. Instead, he seemed to have some resentment towards the sudden alarm itself.

"There weren't so many active infected creatures attacking around Lateran before. I'm not sure what's going on lately... Anyway, there are border soldiers who deal with the invading infected creatures."

The dean took the cup of water on the table and looked at Orson and Ghost Shark again.

"Let's get back to the previous topic. Although that person was once raised by our monastery, we no longer impose boarding control on them now that they have become independent. Therefore, the only information we have about him is his former address."

"That's enough. From now on, we'll handle as much evidence as we can."

Orson didn't expect the dean to be able to dig out all the information about the other party at once. Even if it was only the other party's address, he should be able to find some information about it.

however……

"But—with all due respect, Miss Jeanne. You are a legitimate Lateran nun affiliated with the Langdon Monastery, but this identity alone is not enough. To the Pala Monastery, you are ultimately a strange outsider. Although I apologize for saying this, do you think I would so easily hand over the information about the children once raised by this monastery to you?"

The dean smiled, a smile that was very much in keeping with a wise and experienced man when he was deploying a strategy.

"Hehe... In other words, you want to listen to the cries of bones and flesh before you're willing to hand over that information—it hurts!"

The ghost shark on the side was about to scare the other party, but just as he showed a bloodthirsty smile and was halfway through his words, Orson hit him on the head from behind and instantly became much docile.

"Calm down, Tina. All we have to do is gather intelligence, not start a fight."

Orson calmed down the ghost shark, then he walked up to the old dean and gave her a smile that looked extremely innocent and pure.

This smile, combined with the nun's uniform, should have given her an angelic effect, but for some reason, the old dean only saw a little devil in her eyes.

"To be honest, I...my brother also anticipated this situation, so I also prepared some countermeasures."

Joan of Arc sat on the table, stretched out a finger and shook it gently, the smile on his face still there.

The old dean swallowed her saliva. The other party was obviously a young man who would be defeated by her in terms of seniority, but for some reason, she could only feel a kind of fear.

What...what did she want to say? What countermeasures did she prepare?

The dean couldn't help but stand up nervously. She first looked at the "nun idol" with a chilling smile, and then looked at the other nun next to her who had just had a violent emotional fluctuation, but now just looked at her as if she were a prey.

What on earth do these people want to do? A trace of cold sweat seeped out of the dean's forehead, and at this time Orson also said his own "response plan" -

"If you tell me the information, I will hold a concert at the Pala Monastery."

--Eh?

Faced with the deal proposed by the 'Miss Joan of Arc' in front of her, the old dean was stunned for a moment, and then she gritted her teeth after she came to her senses.

"Our Lateran faith...is not as fragile as you think."

"Then I will add another half day to accompany you and everyone in the monastery. How about this..."

"make a deal."

"So decisive!?"

Orson was actually surprised by the dean's extremely straightforward attitude.

Who wasn't a fangirl when they were young? Although the dean no longer had the energy to engage in those youthful things, she still had a yearning for these "glittering idols" in her heart.

Faced with the cordial invitation from such a lovely rising star from Rutland, the old dean simply chose to surrender to the enemy.

"Really? I thought it would take quite a while... Um, Dean, you said before that we shouldn't take the alarm too seriously because the border guards will handle it, right?"

Orson, who was halfway through complaining quietly, suddenly raised his head, as if a cat smelling danger. He looked towards the floor-to-ceiling window with colorful mosaics on the side and asked the dean.

"Hmm? Yes, those infected creatures are quite active, but most of them are just small groups that have been pieced together and can be wiped out quickly."

"But my frequency detection—get down!!"

Orson was still a little skeptical at first, but the next second he immediately pushed the ghost shark behind the sofa, flipped over the rather wide office desk, and threw the dean next to the glass window to the ground without saying a word.

"What are you doing--!?"

The dean was startled by Joan of Arc's extremely abrupt "attack", but at the same time, the touch from his chest made the old dean have an inopportune thought in his mind: "Sure enough, Miss Joan of Arc is just as the rumors say, super flat."

"Something is approaching!"

Click! ! !

As if he was cooperating with the performance, the next second after Orson finished speaking, the glass on one side of the room instantly exploded and shattered.

"Ugh...!"

Most of the fragments flew towards the inside of the house due to the momentum and landed on the floor. Ghost Shark, who was pushed behind the sofa, and Dean and Orson, who were hiding behind the table, avoided this wave of "glass shotgun" attacks.

“Quack quack!!!”

Before the dean could ask why the glass shattered, an extremely harsh voice from the office explained the reason.

A monster with a distorted shape, covered with traces of crystallization unique to Originium, and roughly the appearance of a Liberimon rushed in from the outside of the wall and rampaged in the room.

After knocking over the bookshelves and cabinets, the monster finally locked onto the dean who was lying behind the table, and flew straight towards him screaming.

"pause--!"

brake--

"Gah!?"

Orson turned over and raised his palm. A dark, shapeless shadow shot out from under his feet. After swinging from left to right, it cut the attacking monster in half.

“Ahem… W-What’s going on…!?”

The dean got up from the ground coughing, holding his waist and asking in panic.

"I'm sorry, I know much less about the current situation than you do, Dean, but what I can confirm is that the 'outer sentry line' you mentioned seems to have been breached."

Orson went over to check on Ghost Shark's condition behind the sofa and responded after confirming that Ghost Shark was not injured.

"How is this possible... Those outer garrison guards have never let any infected creatures escape. What's going on?"

The dean panted as he approached the infected creature that had broken into two pieces and fallen to the ground, and looked at the thing.

"Haha... the answer is simple, isn't it? Those trustworthy border warriors you mentioned have probably become mutilated pieces of meat now, right? Hehehe..."

Ghost Shark taunted with a smile.

"Let's not talk about this for now. Let me see what's going on."

Orson stopped Ghost Shark from speaking and moved closer to the broken glass window. The viewing angle here was wider than when he came here before.

And it was because of this that Orson saw "those things" in his field of vision.

"what is that?"

Orson's brows knitted together, and his tone grew serious.

At the other end of the sight, what was originally just some wasteland and gullies, an uninhabited area with nothing worth paying attention to, is now filled with a large number of moving things.

There were all sorts of infected creatures: Originium worms, claw beasts, hyenas, birds, and—

“Oh my God… what is that thing…?!”

The dean who came over obviously also noticed the existence of "that thing" and she couldn't help but scream in panic.

At the forefront of the rioting tide of infected creatures, no smaller than the Lungmen Scourge, were several swaying Lateran soldiers.

Obviously, that kind of shaking is not the normal posture of a human walking, and the reason why these soldiers walk like this is also very simple -

Behind the Lateran sentinels stood a group of twisted, wriggling, pale, indescribable things.

Those things looked like flower buds that had opened to the sky, but more like traps used to catch and tear apart prey.

Some of the Lateran sentinels had their chests and abdomens pierced by the spears wrapped in the center of those things; some had their entire body below the abdomen swallowed and chewed by the mouthparts of those things, while others had their limbs and internal organs roughly cut and torn apart, and were held high by those things to show off like trophies, and occasionally some of the remaining limbs were fed into organs that were unknown whether they were eating organs.

That's right, those so-called "walking" Lateran soldiers in the front row have turned into various mutilated corpses, swaying with the movement of those indescribable things.

"Ugh...!"

The dean at the side covered her mouth. She was considered mature in terms of age and experience, but even so, this scene far exceeded her psychological defenses.

Elsewhere, Ghost Shark's body trembled slightly after seeing those things. She covered her forehead with her hands, her body trembling slightly. Her scarlet eyes lost focus for a moment, but then forced it back into focus.

"Those things...those things don't belong on land at all—they're enemies from the deep sea!!"

Ghost Shark covered his head and shouted loudly.

"Deep sea!? But why is it here... Well, now is not the time to dwell on this!"

Orson widened his eyes. He had no idea why these things existed here, but what he had to do now was not to sort out the whole story. Without clues and information, he could not sort out the whole story.

There was obviously only one thing he could do at this moment.

Orson took a quick look around and noticed the old wooden-stocked hunting rifle hanging above the bookshelf. It looked more like a work of art than a firearm.

"Don't push yourself, Dean. Go and evacuate the crowd. Also—let me try this thing out."

Orson took down the hunting rifle and instantly determined the position of the bullet by tuning it. He took out the box of Originium bullets, pulled the bolt to load the bullets into the chamber, and returned to the edge of the broken window.

The crosshairs showed the corpses of Lateran soldiers, with only their shoulders and heads left, as well as the deep-sea monsters that were still gnawing on the moving creatures.

"…Sorry, soldiers, thank you for sounding the alarm at the last minute."

Orson pulled the trigger, and a recoil feedback feeling completely different from the gun that the "Doctor" gave him in his dream spread throughout his upper body. This was the feeling of the Originium skill being activated in one breath, rather than simply the gunpowder exploding from the inside of the gun barrel.

"puff!"

The twisted white flower in his sight burst, and Orson heaved a sigh of relief. At least these guys had the concept of "death".

Bang! Kesha, bang! Kesha——

Orson kept pulling the trigger and quickly shot down the infected creatures that were trying to fly over, and at the same time killed half of the white distortions that were devouring the corpses.

However, the waves of infected creatures showed no signs of receding. Instead, they became more and more obvious and closer in the field of vision.

"This won't work... There's no way to stop them! Seriously, why do churches have to be built in such remote, flat places?"

Orson complained loudly, put the hunting rifle aside and prepared to get up and leave. The monsters were getting closer and closer, and there was no point in just relying on his own slow bolt-pulling and shooting.

"This is to increase the distance of each prayer trip here, creating a feeling similar to a 'pilgrimage'..."

The nun explained quietly.

"Really... That's why I'm really not interested in religion..."

17. The passionate speech of the idol nun 'Jeanne'

Orson sighed and instinctively stretched out his right hand towards his left shoulder. However, the next second when he only felt the slippery material of the hem of the nun's hat, Orson realized that he had left the knight sword Maria gave him, which was modified by Snow Pheasant and Krosier, in the hotel.

Now we must contact Archangel Skadi and the others... Damn, where did these monsters come from?

"I'll go stop these guys... Hehehe—Ouch!"

The ghost shark on the side was trembling and showing a bloodthirsty and terrifying smile, but before she could rush out, she was half-forced to be pulled back by Orson.

"Your physique isn't quite ready for combat right now, Tina! And you just said some of these guys are from the deep sea, right? Instead of a head-on confrontation, what we should do now is evacuate the people and wait for assistance from the main force—"

“Wuwaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Don’t, don’t come over here!!?”

Orson's words were interrupted again, this time not by the sound of an alarm, but by a shrill scream coming from the monastery lobby downstairs.

What the hell——has a monster appeared inside?!

These things suddenly appeared in the border area, and of course it was possible that they infiltrated into the interior of the mobile city-state through unknown passages.

Orson, who had once used this trick to sneak into Chernobyl, naturally knew that there were many ways to allow people to directly enter the city from the outside.